Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
June,  1895. 
Structure  of  Sassafras. 
315 
The  pistil  in  the  staminate  flower  is  wholly  aborted.  In  the  pis- 
tillate flower  six  stamens  are  present,  but  with  wholly  or  partly 
aborted  anthers  and  without  pollen.  The  pistil  is  single,  with  an 
ovoid  ovary  and  a  single,  rather  short  style  terminated  by  a  discoid 
stigma.  The  ovary  contains  usually  a  single  ovule,  which  is  ana 
tropous  and  suspended  from  the  top  of  the  ovary. 
The  fruit  is  a  bluish-black,  ovoid  drupe  of  the  size  of  a  pea,  sup- 
ported on  a  fleshy,  club-shaped,  reddish  pedicel,  crowned  by  the  per- 
sistent reddish  calyx  teeth,  which  clasp  the  fruit  at  its  base.  The 
seed  is  exalbuminous. 
All  parts  of  the  plant  contain  more  or  less  of  volatile  oil,  but  this 
Fig.  3. 
is  much  more  abundant  in  the  bark  of  the  root,  which,  therefore, 
constitutes  the  most  important  medicinal  portion. 
The  leaves  and  young  twigs,  particularly  the  pith  of  the  latter, 
are  rich  in  mucilage,  which  causes  them  to  be  employed,  to. some  ex- 
tent, for  demulcent  purposes. 
A  cross-section  of  the  bark  of  a  root  which  has  attained  a  diam- 
eter of  two  inches  or  more  shows  a  structure  which  is  represented 
in  the  illustration,  Fig.  1. 
The  friable  exterior  corky  layer  shows  the  usual  microscopic  ap- 
pearance of  corky  tissue.  The  thickish  middle  bark  beneath  it  is 
rich  in  oil  cells,  which  average  larger  in  size  than*  the  parenchyma 
cells  among  which  they  are  scattered. 
